Lance rolled over in his sleep. His short dark hair was pushed up from the pillow, his eyes darted around behind his eyelids indicating a nightmare. A second later Lance’s eyes shot wide open, and he sat up straight. His hazel eyes scanned the room but found nothing. He stayed silent while he breathed heavily still recovering from the shock. He could hear the small periodic creaking from the next room over and knew that it would be his restless roommate. He looked over to his bedside table and saw his phone as it rested on his wireless charging port. He turned it on without lifting it from the place it rested, the glow of the LED screen hit his face showing the time was now 5.30am.
He sighed before he grabbed his phone and got out of bed. He only wore a singlet and a long thin pair of pyjama pants. His arms showed very little body fat, allowing one to see the defined shaped of his arms. He now stood at a solid one hundred and eighty centimetres in height as he moved out of his room, in which he grabbed a T-shirt, underwear and some jeans. As he rustled around the living room and entered the shower, Lance’s roommate Bill exited their room while he rubbed his eye. Unfaced Lance continued to shower and prepare for the day, while Bill fell onto the couch in front of the television and fell right back to sleep.
A few hours later, the two roommates were showered dressed and eating breakfast before eight o’clock. With the two washed, it could be seen that the two roommates were both around their mid-twenties. As the two ate in silence, Bill checked his phone while lance just stared out the window of their apartment. In the distance he could see large building, built with a large wide base and a thin body that tapered at the top, like the pyramids but the only difference being that instead of a four-sided triangle the retained their rectangular base structure. These types of building spanned for miles with some being taller than others, but the majority of the landscape being covered in them.
Bill suddenly spoke up, “Looks like we have the ticket to go up the floors now.”
While Bill sounded excited there was still a tinge of nervousness in his voice. Lance looked at him and smirked.
“Nervous now are we Billy boy?” Lance said before he got up to take his dish to the sink and ruffled Bill’s orange hair. Even though one of the men was seated, it was clear that Lance held a significant height difference on Bill.
“No Lance, but you have to admit that this is a little bit nerve racking. The rostered group to be allowed access up to the higher floors haven’t reported back.” Bill said. “Does that not even worry you in the slightest?”
Lance just laughed as he washed his dish.
“Why would that worry me, they were so much weaker than me. The only reason they got their ticket first was because South Africa got the chance to send their associated team up first.” Lance said with a small amount of contempt in his voice.
“We’re associated with a private company and a small one at that, we just had to wait out turn, besides… the laws of ground floor can’t contain us up there,”
Bill nodded with a look of concern on his face.
“Anyway, out ticket says our rostered time is to go is within the month, and we get a full year to explore before we must report back,” Bill said as he continued to read the text on his phone.
“So, we have less than a month to make sure we’re all ready to go, have you let the others know yet?” Lance said as he now stretched his limbs while he stood beside Bill.
“Not yet, I’ll message them now. We can all meet up later today to discuss strategy and go over our contract,” Bill replied. Lance nodded back to him.
“Sounds like a plan,”
***
A couple of hours into the afternoon of the day, Bill and Lance walked together to one of the smaller buildings that Lance was able to see from their apartment window. On the side of the building, it read ‘Leonard & Earnest’ around the middle of the building’s base before it started to taper off at the top. As they entered the building, they saw multiple small shops lining the walls of the building’s inside. Straight in front of them as they entered there were small stalls as far as they eye could see, due to the view being obstructed by these small stalls. The two men tilted their head slightly to look up at the multi-level void which seemed to span ten to fifteen stories with a large television hanging off the end of the void but faced the entrance.
Its images changed every thirty seconds from an advertisement of the multiple stores that existed in the complex, telling the viewer exactly where it was or announcements from the news. Lance and Bill walked away to the left of the building, as the followed the precession of stores. Bills eyes remained on the big screen as it displayed a news report about a local murderer that had been caught recently. Along with the fact that multiple of his accomplices were still at large.
Before long the large television in the void of the building was no longer visible so Bill once again began to look where he was walking.
“Where are we meeting them again?” Lance asked Bill. “I forgot which level they are on.”
Bill brought out his phone and flicked into his messaging app. He clicked on the message group called ‘Thrashing’ to open the messages that he had received hours earlier.
“It’s on the fourteenth floor, the little shop called ‘Pristine café’, they say they are already there,” Bill replied. The two men quickened their pace reaching the elevators. They were able to catch the first elevator that came, but they were squashed into the side of the box that moved up and down. Just as people left the box, people moved in with the elevator not falling lower than containing twenty people. The elevator stopped at each floor on the way up, continuously squashed up against the wall of the elevator and the other guests in the lift.
After going up thirteen floors, the two finally reached their floor. Bill being ever polite excused himself the crowd of people, while Lance being fed up with the constant squashing, just pushed people out of his way, enough so that he could get through. Despite the roughness that Lance used, none of the other patrons of the elevator complained, but rather just gave annoyed looks. Some even glaring right back at Lance himself.
When they exited the elevator, they could see the small café which resided on the right-hand side of the building. Relative to the ground floor they had just come from, it would be around the entrance side of the building. Just outside the café Bill saw three familiar figures who were all sitting down in a small space reserved for café customers to sit. Bill waved them down, which garnered a wave in response. Lance followed Bill as they reached the three figures, greeting each other and joining them at the small table. The three figures were all men of bulky figures, the one closest to the void railing for this floor was named Gerry, the one next to him, in between the three seated men was named Martin and finally the man who sat closest to the store was called Nathan. All three men wore the same light blue coloured T-shirt that closely hugged their bodies. All three looked to now be around their early to mid-thirties with facial hair lining each of them in very similar ways. I gave the sense that the three men seated were brothers.
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“How are you guys? Excited to ascend to the next level?” Bill asked in a joking manner. The three men all chuckled.
“Yeah, we just need to get the equipment now that we have the ticket for proof. Did they give you multiple tickets or just one?” Martin asked. Bill brought out his phone again and went into his email app. He quickly checked the email that he had received in the morning and found multiple PDF files attached. He opened one to check the contents in which he inputted a password to unlock the file.
He repeated this process twice more before he finally said, “Yep, multiple tickets. Its probably because we’re a privately employed group instead of a government sponsored group.”
Bill pressed a few buttons on his phone before he put the phone back in his pocket.
“I’ve just sent you guys your tickets,” Bill added. “You’ll need them to get your equipment.”
Lance then chimed in, “We should train together a few more times this week, have any of you booked the training centre yet?”
The four other men all looked at Lance with confusion.
“Were you not going to do that Lance?” Gerry finally asked after a few seconds of silence.
“Yeah, you are the group leader for this expedition,” Nathan added. Lance with an annoyed look, gave the three men who sat opposite him a glare.
“I am the leader because I am the strongest out of all of us. I am not the one who needs the training,” Lance then said. He then added, “As long as you set it up, I will be there, you still need to know how to support me up there.”
The four other men looked at each other with annoyance over their face. Gerry was the first one to speak up as he said, “Alright, we’ll book a few sessions for the next few weeks. But we will use the last week to rest up before we head up the floors.”
All the men nodded to each other, before they departed after drinking their coffees.
***
Over the next week Lance and Bill stuck together as they found equipment from different government listed locations that were included on the email that Bill had received. Lance and Bill bought two sets of armour for themselves. While Lance got a more traditional set, Bill got a more mixed traditional metal plate and modern armour.
When the two roommates met up with the other three members of their group, they showcased their new weapons. Lance using a glaive, Bill using a crossbow, Gerry using a large sword, Martin with a staff with an ornamental end showing a more religious use and Nathan using daggers. Now within a large semi-circle structured building they showed their tickets to a receptionist. She was very beautiful; her dyed light brown hair followed her form as she looked between the group of men and her computer. She typed their ticket numbers into her computer and after a few seconds she allowed the group to go into the next part of the building.
Inside the next part of the building was a large room that seemed to match the dimensions of the outside of the building, excluding the front reception and waiting room area. In the middle of the large room was a podium that had a screen on it. Gerry walked up to it to be able to see what the podium contained, which ended up being a screen that displayed a list of options.
As Gerry looked through the options that were presented, he pressed one of them. In an instant a feminine robotic voice came over a loudspeaker.
“Ambush option selected. Finalizing. Complete. Ambush scenario initiating. If cancellation of scenario is required. Please yell end scenario. Good luck.”
The room then lit up with light blue lines forming all around the room. A green line then went from the top of the room down. As the green line descended the ceiling changed first to that of a blue sky with multiple clouds in the air. Rock cliff faces appeared as the green line descended further.
While a new environment came into being the podium that was positioned in front of Gerry started to descend into the ground. By the time green line had completed its trek down to the ground the podium had completely sunk into the ground. The ground then changed into a rocky substance. They were now in a valley of rock and sand. The men looked behind them and saw that their surrounding had completely changed.
“Wow, how the hell is this possible?” Martin said amazed as he touched the ground and felt the hard rocky surface on which they now stood.
Before any of the others were able to respond a low growling could be heard. From the towering rock cliff faces that surrounded them on both sides, beasts came out of the holes that were there. Their skin was partially covered in fur and scaled despite carrying the shape of a giant wolf. However, fangs protruded from their mouths making their mouths impossible to close.
Just as the five men tried to grab their weapons, Lance was jumped on from behind. Some of the beasts had come down the cliff face and attacked them from behind. As he fell, Bill used an arrow to pierce through the beast’s head as it fell limp on top of Lance’s body. Lance quickly returned to his feet and brandished his glaive.
“O formation,” Lance shouted. Bill, Gerry, Martin, and Nathan listened to Lance’s orders quickly as they fell into a O shape with their backs to each other. Each of their weapons brandished. The beasts were the first to attack. One jumped at Lance, but due to the element of surprise being lost, Lance was very easily to bring his glaive upward, as he sliced the beast’s head clean in half.
As the beast fell to the ground it seemed to glitch a bit before it faded into nothingness. Now surrounded by a multitude of beasts, the group of men supported each other while each fought for their lives. Lance seemed to have the easiest time out of everyone, often once dealing with a beast in front of himself, he would use the butt of his glaive to give Gerry, Bill, or Martin some space to allow them to deal killing blows themselves.
Nathan however had a much easier time than those three men as he weaved through the beasts with ease. He used his knives to cut the tendons of the beast’s hind legs which gave Gerry or Bill time to deal the finishing blow. Lance observed Nathan’s movements, which became difficult while fighting off any beasts in front of him. Bill and Martin had sunk into the now deformed circle and were picking off shots that Gerry, Nathan, or Lance had given them. Bill excelled with his crossbow but was still a bit slow when he reloaded his bolts which allowed beasts to close in on him which were dealt with or stalled by Lance and Nathan respectively.
Out of the three melee fighters, Gerry struggled the most, constantly needing the help of Martin who would constantly heal the small and large injuries he would sustain from the beasts. He would also need to shoot at the beasts with energy bolts that seemed to materialize out of thin air beside him, which he seemed to use his staff as the primary force to propel them and guide them in the correct direction. This gave Gerry enough time to regather his sword from the position which left him exposed often and deal a finishing blow to the beast.
Due to this constant cover that Martin had to provide, Lance and Nathan would often have to provide more support for Martin who was also left exposed to the beasts. Waves upon waves of beasts continued coming, this wore out the group extremely quickly which even cause Lance to fatigue and start slipping with his protection duties.
They had not realised it, but they had been fought the creatures for over two hours now non-stop. This left all of them breathless, including Bill who had the least amount of working to do and was seemed to be able to conserve his strength at certain points of the battle.
“End scenario!” Lance yelled into the air.
“Scenario ending requested. Ending Scenario. You lasted… two… hours… and… twenty… three… minutes.” The same feminine voice came over the loudspeaker. The environment that had been generated only a few hours earlier now had the same green line dissipate the landscape.